SPOTLIGHT ON THE JOB OPPORTUNITY WITH DR. SYLVIE FROMENTIN
For the vacancies within its MSCA COFUND "Young International Academics" programme (YIA), the University of Luxembourg is looking for international talents holding a doctoral degree* and willing to propose and realize their own interdisciplinary research projects through a bottom-up approach. YIA will welcome 10 postdoctoral fellows in 2 calls with individual fellowships of 36 months each.
To learn more about the unique concept of the programme and what it will offer to the future fellows, EURAXESS Luxembourg met with the Strategic Projects Manager at the University of Luxembourg's vice-rectorate for research and Project Manager of the Young International Academics programme within the Institute for Advanced Studies. In charge of all IAS operational and organizational matters, Dr. Sylvie Fromentin is the point of contact and part of the support team for YIA applicants. The future YIA fellows will be in touch with her for any question they may have about their fellowship, to organize training courses or events, and can rely on her to make sure that reporting deadlines of the European Commission are met. Together with the postdoc’s supervisors, she'll try to make things as easy as possible for the new researchers joining the institute, so that their fellowship at the University of Luxembourg goes as smoothly as possible.
Our ambition is that the YIA fellows’ journey via the IAS will be a life-staying experience
What can the future Young International Academics fellows expect in terms of career development?
YIA is a career development programme designed to nurture postdoctoral researchers to gain momentum in interdisciplinary research. A unique aspect of the programme is its integration into the University of Luxembourg’s Institute for Advanced Studies created in 2020 to promote interdisciplinarity and currently hosting 15 Audacity projects, a few Brainstorm and Distinguished projects and 10 Young Academics PhD projects. This integration provides the YIA fellows with:
- an institutional supervision frame for interdisciplinary and intersectoral research with more than 350 potential supervisors and co-supervisors, and about 250 potential public-private partners
- peer and cross-generational interactions/mentoring through IAS fellows, invited distinguished senior scientists, early-career researchers, a mandatory secondment, and
- a truly international flavour in an environment that cherishes diversity and excellence.
They will moreover be offered an "à la carte" training to suit their career aspirations. A specific team will be set up to provide support to candidates, fellows, and supervisors to implement the YIA programme in all its aspects. The ultimate purpose is to provide excellent training and career development opportunities for outstanding postdoctoral fellows, with the view to increasing their interdisciplinarity and employability.
The research environment being among the factors crucial to a project’s success, how would you describe the environment that is awaiting the future YIA fellows?
The YIA fellows will benefit from the ambitions of the University of Luxembourg to continue to foster a culture of excellence, in particular through two aspects: a culture of collaboration and interdisciplinarity and the attraction of international and diverse talents. Both are core values of the IAS.
Our university is organized along 3 faculties (Faculty of Sciences Technology and Medicine-FSTM; Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences-FHSE; Faculty of Law, Economics, and Finance-FDEF) and 3 (soon 4) Interdisciplinary Centers covering different disciplines, which, along with complementary disciplines offered in partner institutions nationally and internationally, form the basis for interdisciplinary research.
YIA fellows will benefit from excellent research options within the triple “I” dimension of the university, offering them InterdisciplinarITY through its 3 interdisciplinary centres and the IAS, Intersectorality thanks to a tight and multispectral collaborative network of more than 350 private and public partners (industries, hospitals, government administrations, public research institutions, educational actors, start-ups, public operators, …), and Internationality besides Multilingualism.
Our ambition is that the YIA fellows’ journey via the IAS will be a life-staying experience. It will help the fellows to build their interdisciplinary scientific network and give them a specific interdisciplinary flavour as an asset to contribute to knowledge development in their future career. The IAS is a promoter of a cross-generational forum for research and peer-mentoring, concepts that benefit from the experience of senior scientists and world-renowned thinkers, and the mutual enthusiasm and dynamism of young scientists.
What would you tell young researchers interested in this opportunity who wonder if they are the right fit for a YIA fellowship?
Don't miss out on this great opportunity! YIA fellows will be offered competitive contracts for mobility fellowships, with access to state-of-the-art research infrastructures as well as opportunities to meet and organize events, all the while, researching in at least two distinct disciplines. Interdisciplinary research often thrives on curiosity and a desire to explore connections between different fields. If you’re naturally curious about multiple subjects and enjoy finding relationships between them, you might be an excellent fit. Open-mindedness, strong communication skills, flexibility and adaptability, the ability to research a variety of subjects, patience and perseverance are all essential assets for young researchers considering a YIA fellowship.
Can you say a few words about the application process for the fellowships?
The application consists of 2 steps:
Step 1: Declaration of interest. The candidate is the initiator of the process by submitting a declaration of interest via a Lime Survey questionnaire.
In case of a successful preliminary eligibility check, the list of potential project supervisors will be shared with the candidate.
Step 2: Submission of the full application. The candidate submits the full project proposal following the different sections of the template, together with a letter of recommendation signed by both supervisors.
A preliminary Career Development Plan (CDP) must be part of the application. The CDP will be further developed after the project starts in collaboration with the supervisor and co-supervisor.
Candidates must complete the Ethics Self-Assessment available in the Application Form document, following the Horizon Europe guidelines. The full project proposal must also contain a preliminary Plan for Dissemination, Exploitation and Communication (PDEC) explaining scientific, societal and economic impacts of the project, taking the Open Science and FAIR principles into account.
Applicants to YIA call will be evaluated by the members of the Scientific Council of the IAS and external experts identified by the University of Luxembourg from the academic and non-academic world. Interdisciplinarity is the key to this program and evaluations will consider the degree of interdisciplinarity of each project.
Once the project submission is complete, the eligibility check will be performed by the University of Luxembourg and a cross-check by the University of Mons (BE), followed by written evaluations by external reviewers and members of the Scientific Council (expected timeframe: 8 weeks). When the ranking is done with the written evaluations, the best ranked 15 candidates will be invited for the oral presentation (pitch of 15 minutes and scientific debate of 15 minutes in front of the Scientific Council of the IAS only). And finally, the funding is validated by the Rector and results are communicated to the candidates by the Head of the IAS.
My colleagues and myself are looking forward to the applications we will receive and to onboarding the new postdoctoral candidates, knowing that our university will strongly benefit from this vivid young community of interdisciplinary YIA fellows.
*To be eligible for the fellowships candidates cannot have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Luxembourg for more than 12 months in the 3 years before the deadline of the call. They must have defended their doctoral thesis before the call deadline but no more than 8 years before the call deadline (possible extensions of eligibility are listed on the YIA website according to the ERC Starting Grant criteria).